Ex-U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon has new job in private practice

Five months after resigning amid a Trump administration purge of U.S. attorneys, Chicago’s former top fed has landed a new gig.

Zachary Fardon will launch a new Chicago office for King & Spalding, the international law firm announced Wednesday. It’s the same firm that just bid farewell to partner Christopher Wray — the FBI’s new director.

The firm called Fardon a “marquee hire.” His new office will focus on government investigations and related commercial litigation, as well as financial services and life sciences, according to the firm’s press release.

Fardon worked for King & Spalding for about five years in the 1990s before becoming a state public defender in Nashville. He became a federal prosecutor in Chicago in 1997, where he helped prosecute former Gov. George Ryan. Fardon became Chicago’s U.S. attorney in 2013 after a brief stint in private practice. The most notable case during his tenure was the prosecution of former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert.

President Donald Trump has nominated John R. Lausch Jr. of Kirkland & Ellis LLP to replace Fardon as U.S. attorney.